On Sunday, March 16, unknown suspects broke into the Mexico City house of Darío Ramírez, regional director of the freedom of expression organization Article 19. They took his work documents and computers, according to the news site Animal Político.
The mass protests in Venezuela have led to 65 violations to freedom of expression, according to the Press and Society Institute (IPYS). As part of those violations, the organization published that, since the protests began on Feb. 12, 69 journalists have been affected by the situation. Among the violations are cases of aggressive and arbitrary arrests by police forces and attacks by protesters and government sympathizers.
Journalists covering the mass protests in Venezuela should consider wearing bulletproof vests, said Frank Smyth, senior advisor for journalism security for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), in a recent blog post.
International organizations are condemning the increased government harassment of two Honduran journalists, Julio Ernesto Alvarado and Dina Meza, in recent months.
Three reporters from the news network Noroeste were assaulted in the Mexican state of Sinaloa on Sunday, March 2, after municipal police attempted to disperse a protest supporting the recently captured drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, reported newspaper El Informador.
The National Union for Press Workers in Venezuela (SNTP in Spanish) accused the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) of detaining 41 persons, of whom at least two were foreign journalists who say they were beaten and robbed of their equipment during a protest on Friday, Feb. 28.
The website of the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIPER) in Chile was hacked on Thursday, Feb. 27, for the second time this year.
Brazilian journalist Geolino Lopes Xavier, known as Gel Lopes, was shot and killed last night in the city of Teixeira de Freitas, in the state of Bahia. He was a TV news show host and director of Portal N3, according to newspaper A Tarde.
A Colombian journalist and his work partner were treated violently by the National Guard of Venezuela while covering protests on Feb. 14, reported the digital newspaper Infobae.
Journalists from numerous news media took to the streets in more than 20 Mexican cities on Sunday, Feb. 23, protesting the dangerous conditions faced by the press in the country and especially in the state of Veracruz, news magazine Proceso reported. The main protest took place around the Angel of Independence Monument in Mexico City, where portraits of the 88 journalists who have been killed since 2000 were distributed among protesters.
Police in the Mexican city of Orizaba, Veracruz, detained and beat a journalist who was covering merchant protests on Saturday, Feb. 22, reported Animal Político.
The Military Police detained and attacked fourteen journalists that were reporting on a protest that took place on Saturday Feb. 22 in the center of São Paulo against the World Cup, which will take place this summer, according to the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji). At least five of the arrested journalists’ rights were violated even though they identified themselves as members of the press.